ADR 0048 — a module's broker account is scoped by its emits and consumes

Events (0046) and their wire (0047) left open how a module reaches the
broker. The code has no generic module broker-account: only node and
builder scopes exist, so emits/consumes are enforced by nothing — a
manifest declaring a scope the broker does not draw (04-ISSUES/003).

Decides: on assign, a module gets a broker account whose permissions ARE
the manifest — read on mesh.events + its own queue bound to consumes;
write to mesh.events under module.<self>.* only; nothing else. Consuming
'#' is a deliberate, auditable grant. The account is what makes the
declaration a rule the broker enforces, not a comment.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
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---
status: proposed
date: 2026-09-04
deciders: jochen
extends: 0046-events-are-a-relationship.md
---
# 48. A module's broker account is scoped by what it emits and consumes
## Context
[ADR 0046](0046-events-are-a-relationship.md) made events a relationship — `emits` and `consumes`
on the manifest. [ADR 0047](0047-the-shape-of-an-event-on-the-wire.md) gave them a wire shape — the
`mesh.events` exchange, the durable per-consumer queue, the reserved routing-key origins. Neither
said how a module *reaches* the broker: what account it holds, and what that account is allowed to
do.
As the code stands, there is no answer. The mesh can provision a **node** account (at enrolment)
and a **builder** account (scoped to the build queue), and it can *deliver* any module a sealed
own-secret at a declared path — but it has no way to provision a broker **account** for a general
module. A module that declares `own-secrets: {broker: …}` and nothing more receives thirty-two
random bytes, not a credential. So on the broker, `emits` and `consumes` are enforced by nothing: a
running module could bind any queue, consume any pattern, and publish under any origin, and the
manifest that says otherwise would be describing a boundary no code draws — the exact shape of fault
[04-ISSUES/003](../04-ISSUES/003-firewall-scope-is-read-by-no-code/00-report.md) records, a scope
declared in manifests and read by nothing.
This settles it, so a module's place on the bus is a thing the broker enforces rather than a thing
the manifest merely claims.
## Decision
### A module gets a broker account when it is assigned, and its permissions are the manifest
When the mesh assigns a module to a node it provisions a broker account for that module on that node,
sealed to the node ([ADR 0039](0039-the-link-is-the-security-boundary.md)) and delivered as the
module's `own-secrets` broker — `amqps://` with the mesh's fingerprint, the shape
[ADR 0047](0047-the-shape-of-an-event-on-the-wire.md) already carries. The account's permissions are
derived from the manifest, and are exactly these:
- **What it consumes.** Read on `mesh.events`, and configure-and-read on its own queue
`<node>.<module>.events` bound to the patterns in `consumes`. It cannot bind or read another
module's queue. A module that consumes nothing gets no read on the events exchange at all.
- **What it emits.** Write to `mesh.events`, restricted to routing keys under its own origin,
`module.<name>.*`. It cannot publish as another module, and cannot publish under the reserved
`mesh.*` or `node.*` origins — those belong to the mesh and the host (ADR 0047). A module that
emits nothing gets no write.
- **Nothing else.** The events account reaches `mesh.events` and that module's own queue, and no
more. Tool serving and calling over `mesh.rpc` is a separate grant on the same principle — a
module serves the tool keys it declares and calls the ones it is bound to — and is scoped the same
way rather than folded in here.
### Consuming everything is a privilege, granted deliberately
`consumes: ["#"]` — the audit logger — is read across the whole bus: every module's events, the
mesh's, every node's. That is not a pattern like any other; it is the power to see everything, and
the account is where it becomes visible. The grant that lets one module read the entire bus is one
the mesh issues on purpose and can be audited — the answer to *who can read everything* is a row, not
a guess — rather than a breadth any manifest acquires by typing a single character. A `#` consume is
a reviewed grant, not a default one.
### The account is how the declaration is enforced
Because the account can do only what `emits` and `consumes` name, the broker itself refuses a module
that tries to consume a queue it did not declare or emit under an origin it does not own. That is what
makes an event relationship a rule and not a comment — the discipline that a stated rule says how it
is checked. A manifest that over-declares grants more than the module uses, which is visible and
reviewable; one that under-declares makes the module fail closed at the broker, which is the safe
direction to be wrong in.
## Consequences
- The control plane gains a **generic module broker-account**, derived from the manifest. The
builder stops being a special case: its access to the build queue becomes an ordinary expression of
what it consumes and serves, not a bespoke account method. One rule, and the builder is an instance
of it.
- The runtime reads its credential from a file (the broker own-secret), `amqps://` verified against
the mesh's fingerprint. The `guest` account is for raising the substrate, never for a module — a
module documented as holding its own credential and handed the broker's administrative one is worse
than one with no credential story at all.
- `emits` and `consumes` stop being advisory. They are the module's authority on the bus, so the
manifest is now a security boundary and is reviewed as one, the discipline
[ADR 0043](0043-a-declaration-is-an-ordered-list-of-owned-resources.md) applies to the declaration
vocabulary.
- *Who can read the whole bus* becomes an answerable question, because `#` is a grant and not an
accident.
## References
- [ADR 0046](0046-events-are-a-relationship.md) — events are a relationship; this scopes the account
by that relationship.
- [ADR 0047](0047-the-shape-of-an-event-on-the-wire.md) — the wire this account secures: the queue,
the origins, the `amqps` credential shape.
- [ADR 0039](0039-the-link-is-the-security-boundary.md) — the link is the security boundary; a
module's account is sealed to its node the same way a node's is.
- [ADR 0043](0043-a-declaration-is-an-ordered-list-of-owned-resources.md) — a declaration is owned
and its additions reviewed; a module's broker permissions are that discipline applied to the bus.
- [04-ISSUES/003](../04-ISSUES/003-firewall-scope-is-read-by-no-code/00-report.md) — a scope declared
in manifests and enforced by no code: the fault this decision closes for events.